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Before NYC got it’s bike share program there was a lot of speculation about whether it was going to succeed. Most of the doubt centered around the winter months when I heard a lot of: “There is no way it’s going to be year round. They’ll have to take all the bikes in and […]

Bikesharenyc.blogspot.com is your resident purveyor of NYC’s Citibike program. The site is helpful for things like tracking the “NotSpots” (stations with no bikes) shown here in a heat map of Manhattan with the white circles being completely empty.

Also to point out third party innovations like the versatile smart phone mount […]

This just in, the financially struggling Citibikes (Citibikenyc.com) bike share may have a new savior…Donald Trump. The megalomanic with the perfect hair wants to add to his empire and use the bike share as a vehicle to advertise his conservative agenda.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer and Transportation Alternatives executive director, Paul Steely White have more on this new development from today’s Brian Lehrer Show.

The Brian Lehrer ShowA New Citi Bike Savior: Donald Trump?

(Getty)The WNYC transportation team has seen early copies of a report on how the financially troubled Citi Bike program could be rescued by real estate mogul Donald Trump. Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives discusses the initial proposal for “Trump Wheels” and what it means for bikers all over New York City.

Since the publishing of the “Is it Ok to Kill Cyclists?” op-ed in the Sunday NY times (11/9/13) by Daniel Duane, there has been a number of responses as the article has made the rounds through bicycle blogs and other related publications.

The main point of Duane’s piece, although not entirely clear (at least not to this blogger) was to illustrate how drivers rarely face criminal charges after hitting and killing cyclists, even when the motorist is at fault. The opinion gave some vague examples but didn’t do a good job of finding details about why motorists aren’t prosecuted or if cyclist fatalities are even investigated.

In fairness to the author, Daniel Duane did appear on a radio program to clarify his position and continue to champion the cause that drivers seem to be getting away with murder.

There was also a well done NPR piece over the weekend that brought up a discussion about whether the bikes should be treated like cars in regards to current traffic laws and how cities are designed, especially with the rise in the popularity of bike sharing programs.

On this week’s episode of Gabfest Radio, Political Gabfest panelists Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what happens if healthcare.gov doesn’t work by Nov. 30, and whether bikes should be treated like cars.

The radio program used Duane’s piece as an example that it’s NOT, OK to kill cyclists while citing the opposite side of the coin, People who apparently think it’s perfectly fine (to kill cyclists) and uses the old argument that we deserve it because of our blatant violation of traffic laws. (laws designed for motor vehicles) Case in point, Christopher Caldwell from the Weekly Standard.

Drivers Get Rolled
Bicyclists are making unreasonable claims to the road—and winning
November 18th, 2013

Cyclists like the ones in New Hampshire, whose reckless riding and self-righteousness have earned rolled eyes nationwide and the nickname of “Lycra louts” in England, have tested the public’s willingness for compromise. As bicyclists become an ever more powerful lobby, ever more confident in the good they are doing for the environment and public health, they are discovering—to their sincere surprise—that they are provoking mistrust and even hostility among the public.

Mostly this op-ed is an excuse to continue the defensive gross generalization of cyclists being mostly rich middle age liberals who are not blue collar enough. Caldwell venomously spews:

“They are, to judge from their blogs, more aggrieved by delivery trucks parked in bike lanes than drivers are by delivery trucks parked in car lanes. This may be because proportionately fewer of them have ever met a person who drives a delivery truck.”

He does make a few points that roadways are outdated and don’t include the physical space for bicycles. Also, there are some valid points that biking is healthy for both people and the planet, but most cyclists are just too self righteous and think they own the roadways so therefore it’s Ok to run a few over.

Somehow it seems that if you choose to ride a bicycle as a form of transportation, you’re somehow expected to act like cars and be their equal, but if your hit by one, then your treated like less than equal. In an attempt to reclaim a sense of humanity, that actual lives have been lost, letters to the editor of the NY Times evoke similarities to pedestrians.

In direct response to the Daniel Duane piece…
From the Opinion pages of the NY TIMES

Caution: Danger in the Traffic Lanes
By: David Berman
November 10th, 2013

No, it is not O.K. to kill cyclists with impunity, but neither is it O.K. to kill pedestrians, which happens a couple of hundred times a year in New York City. The problem is not a cultural predisposition against bicyclists; it is that nobody obeys traffic laws anymore, and that’s at least partly because nobody is enforcing them.

Yes, it’s true, I’m super psyched about bike sharing coming to NYC. Mainly because it puts more people on bicycles and is another viable transportation option, getting my home town one step closer to those other cool cities that have bike sharing, like Paris, Barcelona, Washington, DC and of course Boston.

This has been a stellar week for NYC’s very anticipated bike sharing, sponsored by Citibank and due to kick off in May.

Citibike docking stations have already been put up in several Brooklyn locations:

Here is a nice big one I found in the Fulton Mall on Willoughby St, near a couple of Downtown Brooklyn hotels.

In the beginning of April, Streetsblog.org transportation reporter, Ben Fried, got a chance to take the bikes out for a preview ride:

Taking Citi Bike for a Test Ride
By: Ben Fried
April 5th, 2013

With Citi Bike set to launch later this spring, the long wait for bike-share in New York City is almost over. But I couldn’t bring myself to wait an instant longer, so recently I headed over to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to try out some Citi Bikes.

A small network of bike-share stations has been operating for the past few months in the Navy Yard, where people who work inside the walls can try out the system, checking out bikes using the same key fobs that annual subscribers will get once Citi Bike launches. I was able to borrow one of the fobs and go for a test spin on a frigid morning in March.

Monday (4/14/13)
Streetsblog reporter Stephen Miller reported that NYC Deputy Mayor, Howard Wolfson (twitter: @howiewolf) and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn, launched the official sign up to the citibike program where people can go on line and register for annual memberships.

Howie tweeted:

Article from Streetsblog:

Sadik-Khan, Wolfson Invite New Yorkers to Sign Up for Bike-Share
by Stephen Miller
April 15th, 2013

In 2009, the Department of City Planning released an ambitious blueprint for bike-share in New York, and in 2011, the Department of Transportation began an extensive public process to site actual bike-share stations. Now the planning is giving way to implementation, with North America’s largest year-round bike-share system set to launch in May. Today, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson marked an important milestone: New Yorkers can now sign up for annual bike-share memberships.

Annual membership sign-ups have been open since early this morning, and more than 2,500 people have already subscribed at the rate of about $103 per year (including tax), which entitles users to unlimited rides up to 45 minutes long.